தினசெய்தி – 19 11 2023
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அருந்தமிழும் அன்றாட வழக்கும் – 188
நடிகர் திலகம் முழங்கிய ஷேக்ஸ்பியரின் தொடர்கள்
முனைவர் ஔவை அருள்
தில்லிப் பல்கலைக்கழகத்தில் யான் 28 ஆண்டுகளுக்கு முன்பு வழங்கிய
முனைவர் பட்ட ஆய்வின் முப்பத்தெட்டாம் பகுதி வருமாறு:
EFFLORESCENCE IN THE MEDIA . . . .
Entitled Chaya the production began with the noted Bombay film maker Nandalal Jashwanthlal as Director, and T.V. Kumudini and M.G. Ramachandran in lead roles.
But unfortunately the production came to a halt.
It was produced in 1947 under the title ‘Katakam’ featuring the noted singer actress of yesteryear T. Suryakumari, T.S. Baliah, T.R. Ramachandran, C.V.V. Panthalu, T.S. Durairaj.
This was not a box office hit.
Another successful adaptation of a Shakespeare play was K. Ramnath’s ‘Kanniyin Kathali’, an adaptation of Twelfth Night, produced by Jupiter Pictures.
The script was penned by the noted Tamil scholar and playwright S.D. Sundaram. Anjali Devi, Madhuri Devi, S.A. Natarajan, K. Sarangapani and K.R. Ramsingh were in the cast.
Madhuri Devi played the male role and to dub her dialogue with a male voice Ramnath came up with an excellent technique for the first time in Indian cinema.
Jupiter Production’s ‘Mohini’ (1948) also had something of Shakespeare in its content.
A.S.A. Sami, Professor turned film maker drew a large measure of inspiration from Shakespeare’s The Two Gentlemen of Verona.
Mohini had M.G. Ramachandran, V.N. Janaki, T.S. Baliah, Madhuri Devi, R. Balasubramanian and M.N. Nambiar in the main roles.
Another Tamil Film ‘Chinna Durai’ with T.R. Mahalingam and S. Varalakshmi is based on The Taming of the Shrew. In the film ‘Nallathambi’ produced by N.S. Krishnan there is a dance sequence of P. Bhanumathi as Cleopatra,
‘Ponmudi’ starring Narasimha Bharathi and Madhuri Devi is a love story influenced by Romeo and Juliet.
The script was written by the Tamil poet Bharathidasan.
The Taming of the Shrew was another Shakesperean play which was a source of inspiration to Indian film makers.
A.T. Krishnasami wrote a play in Tamil based on the Shakesperean play which he named ‘Oh, what a Girl!’.
As a play it was fairly successful featuring Y.G. Parthasarathy, Pattu, Sandhya and others, and Krishnaswami produced it as a film, “Arivali’ with Shivaji Ganesan and P. Bhanumathi in the lead roles.
It took nine long years to produce this film and yet it was well received when it was released in 1963.
Romeo and Juliet also inspired many film makers.
Ellis. R. Dungan’s ‘Ambikapathy’ reflected the Shakesperean love tragedy in a good measure.
Ellis Dungan included sequences and dialogue passages from Shakespeare in his Tamil film which included the famous balcony scene.
Roles of Romeo and Juliet were played by Ramesh Aravind and Sivaranjani in a brief scene in the movie Puthiya Thendral.
Shivaji Ganesan and Savithri have also played the roles in Nalla Veedu .
Popular scenes from Shakespeare have also found a place in the celluloid world.
“The Bed-Chamber Scene from Othello was played by Shivaji Ganesan and Padmini in ‘Anbu”.
The dialogues were a translation into Tamil from the original.
The same scene, with the original text was played by Shivaji Ganesan and Savithri in the movie Ratha Thilagam.
Revathi has played the role of Desdemona in the film
‘Idhaya Thamarai’.
In ‘Rajapart Rangadurai Shivaji Ganesan has rendered the famous soliloquy in Hamlet “To be or not to be’,
In ‘Priya’ Rajnikanth has played the part of Julius Caesar.
Antony and Cleopatra also attracted a few actors. M.G.Ramachandran as Antony and Jayalalitha as Cleopatra have rendered a song sequence in ‘Kavalkaran’.
Prabhu has also played the part of Antony in ‘Kavalukku Gettikkaran’.
The long rhetorical speeches which occur in some form or other in Tamil films are modeled on Antony’s oration in Julius Caesar.
“Othello” in Tamil has found a play in B.B.C. and the dubbing voice artists were Delhi Ganesh, Poornam Viswanathan, Fathima Babu and Anuradha.
The script was written by Sankar Sankaramoorthy.
From Pammal Sambanda Mudaliar’s stage to the celluloid world there has been a long step.
The themes of Shakespeare’s plays have a charm and appeal and no wonder the Tamil Stage and the film world have adequately made use of the Shakesperean material which in turn, has inspired Tamil actors to use new techniques in acting.
One of the earliest journals dedicated to the propagation of Shakespeare awareness in India was Kala Nilayam, a literary weekly founded by T.N. Seshachalam, a lawyer turned journalist.
It was a literary weekly which was in circulation for seven years from 1928 to 1935.
The two plays that he serialised are Julius Caesar (1932) and The Tempest (1933) both in dramatic prose form with the songs of Shakespeare preserved in translation.
Othello was serialised upto III act and remained incomplete.
Only Julius Caesar was published posthumously in 1961.
T.N. Seshachalam also encouraged one of his friends T.S. Nataraja Pillai to translate portions of King John with intermittent narration of the story and serialized them in Kala Nilayam.
The credit for disseminating Shakespeare among the Tamil scholarly world in the thirties goes to T.N. Seshachalam.
– முனைவர் ஔவை அருள்
தொடர்புக்கு dr.n.arul@gmail.com
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